In the related art, a headwear having ventilation holes in its body, a headwear in which a mesh material is used in a part or an entire part of the fabric of the body, and other headwears are known as air permeable headwears.
According to a method of forming ventilation holes in the body, although ventilation holes having a diameter of approximately 1 mm to 5 mm are formed at a number of appropriate positions, since the ventilation holes are small, it is difficult to secure air permeability sufficient for giving a sense of refreshing feeling. Moreover, when a mesh material is used in a part of the fabric of the body, although it is possible to secure air permeability, since sunlight reaches directly the portion formed of a mesh material, the wearer cannot experience a sense of sufficiently refreshing feeling. Further, when ventilation holes are formed in the body and a mesh material is used in a part of the fabric of the body, the appearance is not satisfactory.
Patent Document 1 discloses a headwear in which ventilation portions are formed in a front surface of the crown and a length adjustment belt having a bag-shaped central portion and configured to receive a sweat absorbing mechanism and other heat absorbing mechanisms as necessary is attached to a front-half portion of the inner circumference of the lower end of the crown. According to this invention, although air incoming from the ventilation portions flows downward from voids appearing between the front surface of the belt and the inner circumferential surface of the crown, countermeasures against the sun glare and the foreign materials entering from the ventilation portions are not taken.
Moreover, when the length adjustment belt is tightly fastened to the forehead, since voids appear between the front surface of the belt and the inner circumferential surface of the crown and air incoming from the ventilation portions of the crown flows downward from the voids, the forehead is cooled with the flowing air and wetting and sweating of the head can be prevented. However, since one end of the belt except the bag-shaped portion is sewn to an inner circumferential end of the crown and the other end protrudes outward from the other circumferential end so as to be connected to an adjuster, the adjuster appears on the exterior appearance of the headwear. Moreover, it is difficult to attach the belt to the headwear.
Patent Document 2 discloses a headwear in which an inlet aperture for introducing air into the headwear is provided in the front of the crown above the level of the peak, a baffle or a blade is provided so as to be suspended from an upper edge of the inlet aperture, and an outlet aperture is provided in an occipital region of the crown. According to this invention, a mild turbulence created by the baffle or the blade in a region extending from the inlet aperture to the outlet aperture covers the top of the head of the wearer of the headwear to thereby create a cooling effect. However, since outside air from the front of the headwear is blocked by the baffle or the blade, the outside air will not come into direct contact with the forehead of the head of the wearer of the headwear, which is a region most sensitive to cool air. Moreover, in this invention, since the aperture is formed of a fabric, it is impossible to reliably maintain the aperture.
In Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2013-019088 (Patent Document 3), the present inventor has proposed a headwear in which an aperture is formed in the front and rear portions of the body and a louver mechanism including a louver frame and a blade plate is fixed to the aperture as a headwear which has air permeability and light shading properties and an excellent exterior design. Since the headwear of this invention has air permeability and light shading properties, the wearer can experience a sense of sufficiently refreshing feeling. However, since apertures need to be formed in the body and the louver mechanism needs to be fixed to the apertures, it is difficult to manufacture the headwear and the headwear is not appropriate for mass production.
Patent Document 1: Microfilm of Japanese Utility Model Registration Application No. S55-100319 (Japanese Unexamined Utility Model Registration Application, Publication No. 557-027427)
Patent Document 2: Japanese Patent No. 4516689
Patent Document 3: Japanese Unexamined Patent Application, Publication No. 2013-019088